


Glittering Light on Water

by Okumen



Series: 100 Lifetimes [16]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 100 Lifetimes Challenge, M/M, subtly reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 22:41:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16942074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Okumen/pseuds/Okumen
Summary: When you live in a culture you get used to things, and he’s old enough to have experienced many cultures. Not so the human staring up at the altean pool, not all that different from the pools the Galra used to have millennia ago.





	Glittering Light on Water

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm rewatching Voltron and the pool thing with Keith and Lance popped up a while ago, so this had to happen.

Living for a twisted lifetime, living for practically an eternity, can be tiring. Sometimes you try to take breaks and sometimes you find something new to take your mind off of things, sometimes you find a new purpose in the complete mess that is your far too long life.

Lotor has found a few distractions on and off, has tried to preserve civilizations, to secretly hide them away from his father’s destruction, has planned for the future, for when his plot of ridding the universe of his father- of the Galra as a whole- bore fruit. Has planned for a long time for the time that the Alteans reclaim their rightful place in the universe.

Sometimes it is a people motivating him, sometimes it was a specific person that he felt a special connection to. He didn’t have a particularly specific kind of person that he preferred, but he has discovered with time that he felt drawn, once in a blue moon, to somebody with eyes filled with wonder and a strange sense of familiarity attached to them.

 

When you live in a culture you get used to things, and he’s old enough to have experienced many cultures. Not so the human staring up at the altean pool, not all that different from the pools the Galra used to have millennia ago, when they were still peaceful and could borrow knowledge from the Altean architects. “Amazing! How does that work! Hey, do you know? Are there any books on it? You think Allura will get upset if I tinker a little with it?” Apparently the human had forgotten all about his intentions to get to bathe in a pool for the first time in years, far too distracted by what appeared to be an unfamiliar sight. “Now I even have a proper beach bod,” he had explained, not explaining anything to Lotor. “Not that I didn’t already have a beach bod.”

“Right... Congratulations?” Lotor retorted with a confusedly arched eyebrow and mystification turned down at the human. The brother of the green paladin was just as quirky as the green paladin herself. “Yours is amazing too by the way,” he had been informed, which really didn’t clear things up and Lotor blinked and just got out a confused, “Thank you...?”

But that was before they actually reached the pool. Then Matthew forgot everything about actually taking a bath. Apparently the pools on Earth were on the floor. They could have slides that go all over the place, the human said, drawing descriptions in the air with a finger. Did this man ever truly have any thought of bathing for even a second, even initially? Or was he simply curious? He would hardly need an excuse to explore, being family to the paladins.

Lotor watches with some concern as the human dangles from a control panel. He was staying in the pool while Matthew was investigating the lower panels, but once the human started to climb a wall to reach a panel and eventually reached the ceiling, Lotor dropped out of the pool to be able to make sure that the human didn’t harm himself too badly in case of a fall. Human bodies are fragile and soft, even if in spirit they are tough. Is it considered coddling to stand around and watch as the human investigate the workings of the pool? For some reason he is a bit more concerned than he usually might be.

Still, it is good that he did, because Matthew does lose his grip. Though it appears to be out of excitement rather than out of his arms tiring. There is something familiar that made his heart skip a beat, then starting to beat heavier inside his chest, as he held the man in his arms. Matthew blinks, seemingly a little dazed. “You’re strong,” he comments as Lotor put him down on his feet. “You’re underweight.”

Matthew puffs up his cheeks for a moment and then he makes one of the comical expressions that only he seems capable of making. “I did live on a barren planet for quite a while so, yeah, food was a bit of an issue sometimes. But I’m not that bad for a human. Also you’re sort of wet.” Lotor picks at a clump of his hair, plastered to his skin and, indeed, wet. “I _was_ taking a swim. And,” He grasp Matthew by the shoulders, and tosses him up, and into the pool. Matthew sputters when he surfaces, and laughes when Lotor finishes, “now you are wet as well.” The laugh is pleasant and old strings of memories tugs for his attention, but he pushes those aside.

Matthew looks up-down at him, he brushes a hand through his hair, pulling it out of his face, and his expression is full of teeth in a winning, funny smile. “You know what they say; a wet man is hotter than a dry man.” Matthew squeezes one eye closed in Lotor’s direction, keeping the other open. Hand still in his wet hair. “I do not know. What is wrong with your face?”

Matthew stuck his tongue out at him. “I’m winking. Does Galra not wink? It’s supposed to be hot. Or cute. Or all sorts of good stuff.”

He doesn’t know what that is meant to be, but it is endearing in a ridiculous sort of way. “You’re a remarkably silly person.” He has missed silly, senseless banters, he realize. It is hardly a common thing for him to get into aboard the Castle. “Is it a common thing on Earth?”

“Uh, yeah. People do it all the time at each other, like if they think someone’s cute or if they’re being cute, and stuff.” Lotor makes his way back into the pool. He parts the curtain of hair that falls in front of his face. Matthew is making an amusing expression again. “You may have to clarify.” He leans against the edge of the pool and Matthew swims over to him, and Lotor listen to Matthew’s possibly too-complex and too-animated lecture about human flirt-body language as old memories try to grasp for his attention. Flirt-body language? Well. That was certainly..something. It is more entertaining than thoughts of stories that he had read about yet never entirely believed, particularly when told in such an engaged, playful fashion.

 

Once in a blue moon he ends up attracted to someone, and maybe he has a bit of a “type”, but it is rare that he gives himself the time to indulge, so isn’t it fine that his back is pressed to the edge of the pool, a warm chest against his, a rough-palmed hand at the back of his neck, lips finding lips finding wet skin, even if he sometimes wonders if he just ends up falling for someone because they have the same soul or something else equally fairy tale absurd?


End file.
